Hey so Internet died again huh aka Gyaru fatigue

 

Hey, welcome back,

So I died on the internet again, aka gyaru fatigue. Now let me start this off by saying I love gal I'm still gal and that this will be mostly a quick type out my feelings check for anything that pops up marked as a mistake by gramerly and post kinda post so dont expect anything too coheasive or amazing... basically what im trying to say is this is kind of like a vent post and an update and a topic I wanna talk about all in one. Basically know my mood writing this is a bit:

So wait... Gyaru fatigue?

Yep, gyaru fatigue. Well, also online fatigued, but most deffo gyaru fatigue. Something I don't think I've actually seen anyone publicly talk about, but feel free to prove me wrong. I do, however, think it's something most of us have experienced, especially if you've been doing gyaru for years (I can only imagine how bad the older vets get it). I have kinda been dead on all platforms coz idk life or something, but I do check in, and I see it with people trying out gal too in a different way too (yes, this is yet another rant inspired by something on reddit), and I guess I just wanna talk about it from my, I guess technically almost vet (scaryyyy) perspective I guess.

Baby gyaru fatigue?

Yes. This is the one I think is going to be most complicated, I think, coz it's a bit of a double-edged sword, on one side there's genuine fatigue of learning something, on the other side there's the people who crash tf out over minor concrit. Now, this is the part which was inspired by Reddit once more, so let me get started with that first and the paragraph that made me think about this:

"I understand that this community can sound harsh but it is a reflection on people's willingness to offer detailed advice only for it to be repeatedly ignored and dismissed by OP."

Obviously, this is out of context, but I hope you can pick up the context needed for this, coz I have spoken on this before. This was my reply to it on the original post:

"...that last paragraph is so true. People need to start remembering that part of gal has always been the girls rebaling and that included against the Japanese societal expectation of having no opinion on anything or being overly polite to a point of nothing ever being said. Gals are blunt not out of being mean (which is a stereotype that also needs to die) but out of care.

I speak for myself as someone's who's been here for what almost 4 years now (I've lost track lol) but the comms willingness to give anyone and everyone concrit at the drop of a hat is admirable, I genuinely don't know any other comm like this and part of why I honestly left is the same reasons many og vets did too and that's all the effort we put into trying to bring people like op up and to help them be the best version of themselves be thrown back in our face, not even by people not following our advice but by ops attitude and pretending were putting them down. Like we all have bad days hell I've crashed tf out out of frustration coz of a wall I just couldn't break through for a while and getting the same concrit it happens but you also then can't be shocked when it backfires really."

 And I think for the most part that really does sum up my feelings on at least this part of baby gal fatigue. I know how it feels to be bombarded by concrit, and I know it can get overwhelming, but if I learned anything from when I first started gal in 2022, it's that even if it gets rough, just 1. say no concrit pls and 2. just log off. I know it's the most overused basic advice, but it's true, like don't crash out over makeup, take a day offline, and when you calm down, come back and read what was said again, and even if you don't agree, try to appreciate that the comm cares enough about wanting everyone, including you to succeed to go out their way to help. Every gal you've ever seen will have been given concrit, it's how we go from looking like this:

Me circa 2022

To this:

Me circa. 2026

We do not go from one to the second with no concrit, tho reaserch is also important. Even when we hit that one wall of being stagnant before it all finally hits, and the make massivley improves, all we can do is just keep at it. Speaking of...

Baby gyaru fatigue: Hitting the wall

I think we can all remember when we hit a wall, not just in gal but in any hobby, where it seems like no matter what we do, we just can't seem to improve, and that really is a frustrating time, and I think this is when a lot of people who try gal simply quit. I do have mixed feelings on this, as on one hand I do think a lot of these people who post like 1 or 2 makes and then nothing else before after a month or two, making a huge "Im leaving gal" post, were never really Gyaru to begin with, just people chasing a trend (but that's another topic, if anyone wants that lmk), but on the other hand, there's a few people whos journy I truly have been invested in who just disapeared after obviouslly hitting that wall and that makes me sad lowkey, like again Ive been there I think we all have, its a frustraiting discouraging time and I know i wanted to quit during it too. My advice for this is don't, don't quit gal, if you do truly love it. Take a month or a few off if it's impacting you negatively in any way, and then come back bigger and better, and I genuinely think that will make you improve. It's like the idea of forgetting everything you know about xyz and starting again as if you are a beginner; it really does open you up to getting better. I know this section isn't really that long, but that's my truth, really. If you're reading this feeling like this, I just want you to know you've got this.

Gyaru fatigue

So we made it to the meat and potatoes of the post, and that's Gyaru fatigue in none baby gals, I would call it vet gal fatigue, but I don't feel like that's accurate, tho I do think this is more of a thing for vets and people close to being vets. I touched on it in that comment I quoted, but sometimes with the current state of the gal comm, it all does just become very fatiguing (is that a word?). Now I say this as a still relative newbie to the comm, I can only sympathise with the og vets who have been here for years on end, but I hope Im not speaking for them in all this. Now I do love giving people concrit, I love watching people improve, I love gal, but man, is it all tiring. It kinda lops back to the first part of this post and to the people who are just so opposed to concrit that they crash out calling us all mean and bitchy, like again I do get getting frustrated, but sometimes it does feel like we go out of our way to help you improve (which we're not obliged to do) just to have it thrown in our face.. it sucks. add to it in general seeing the same missinfo, us making recources that go unused in favour of tiktoks spouting bs, people seemingly not being willing to learn, people not wanting to reaserch their own answers (I will crash out the next time I see the same "where to get gyaru magazines", "what makeup to get for gal" or "what substyle should I be" post I swear) which are easily found. Like ik that at least r/actualgyaru has a whole QnA post with all this stuff, hell, if you search your question in the subreddit, you will probably find it, it all makes me think of this one post I commented on the other day (was I being a bit mean yea I'll admit it) where someone posted this exact image asking where they can find lenses like this:

 From PinkyParadise.com

And I think my response sums up exactly where I think I and many long-term gals are at mentally right now: 

"If you look at your own picture you posted you will see the pinkyparadise.com watermark. That may be a clue that pinkyparadise.com has those exact lenses"

 Now again, was I a bit mean? Sure, but I hope you guys can understand why.

So what now?

Honestly, I don't know.

I wish I had something else to end this with, coz I know this is probably a bit depressing of an ending for the post, but honestly, I don't think there's much we can do about any of this. I think a lot of it is us just being human, we all get tired eventually, but the one thing that I know is online validation, or even just being online, a gal doesn't make, living does. I do also think that we all need to have a bit more understanding for people in other parts of their gal journey on both ends, before you crash out about being given concrit, stop and think about why you're being given it and appreciate why it might be given, and you're a vet, well, appreciate people are trying to get into this culture that we love.

I don't even really know how to end this properly. Again, this is more a vent than anything else, but I do hope this resonates with someone and lets them know this is normal and you're not the only one feeling this. Feel free to send questions or anything else, in its always appreciated, but for now this is the end of the post, I guess... 

 Do zobaczenja <3

With thanks to Amyh for Blog Deco

Advice for baby gals 3: Substyles

 

Hey, welcome back,

New year, new advice for baby gals. originally I was gonna focus part 3 on hair to get the trifecta done, but if Im honest, I suck at styling my hair, so im probably not the best to write about it lol.

So instead, let's talk substyles. I know I see a lot of questions and discussions about them all the time, so I feel like this might be useful to y'all in some way or another. Let's get started.

So what are substyles?

Fake lol. Well not really, but I see people often think substyles are equivalent to what would be the distinctions between Goth, Emo and scene (and more but yk) which gives the wrong impression that these things are super seprate and exclusive to themselves when this really isn't the case, the only distinction in gal that sorts anything is the Kuro/Shiro "divide". Substyles were honestly just trends, just like how clean girl or office siren are trends, that's literally all. You can track this history through egg honestly, and we even talk about this without realizing talking about how yamanba was popular in the early days or how himekaji and onee were later styles in the og gal lifecycle, we see models switch styles as the trends progressed, and are we shocked? Gal was always about staying trendy and yourself its why gal is so widespread as a style.

Now to say every gal ever did every style would be a lie, there were gals doing older styles all the time and even now coz well that's who they were, same as not all gals enjoyed the same activities, whilst a hime gal might sterotypically enjoy going to get cakes and tea for example an ora ora gal might enjoy going to car race tracks or be riding in motercycle gangs, but obviously these activities werent for one gal and not the other. 

So, wait, if substyles are fake, what does that mean?

Not much really lol. They still work the same, really; the only thing that should change is how much reverence substyles get. Substyes aren't a box and never should have been viewed as such, don't put yourself in a box, experiment, if you wanna wear tsuyome one day and ane the other do it. Gals in general (at least in Japan) never used substyles like the boxes we seem to treat them like, they wouldn't really use it as "Im agejo gyaru" but more so a "Im gyaru. im dressed agejo today." basically youre gyaru or you're not. Like, I don't want to break y'all's hearts or anything, but some substyles aren't even particularly gal-made, just gal-absorbed, like hime(kaji), for example.

Wait, what do you mean hime(kaji) isn't gal?

Well, that's the way gal works? it absorbes the trends around it, that's why we do have all these trends in gal, gals originally did really just dress trendy in one way or another, or how they wanted thats why you see people harping on and on about your makeup all the time, makeup makes, or breaks gal, all gal make follows the same rules. But this isn't a make post, but please keep that in mind.

Yuzuremon

Like, look at this photo. Not gal right. But imagine her with more of a gal hair and make.... all of a sudden I'd argue she'd very much match at least my image of a Hime (kaji) look. 

Sorry, can't find op 

Same with this outfit, this is himekaji just without the gyaru. You can see more examples of this here. Many of these gyaru substyles have a life of their own outside of gal, they have also evolved outside gal, which brings me round to;

Don't let substyles dictate you, let gal evolve

Long heading aside, I mean it: substyles have dictated Gaijin (lowkey mostly English-speaking) gyaru communities for a bit too long. There is nothing wrong with loving the Heisei trends in gal, hell, most of us fell in love with gal due to them, and its ok to still dress in them, but that doesn't mean that's all we have to do. This obsession has led to so many evolutions in gal to be labeled as not gal enough or not gal, like Reiwa gals weren't considered gal, at some point, even Cgals not being considered gal. We're scared of letting gal evolve past what we first loved in it, and I get it, I really do. If I could compare, I feel like many veterans of the time and many experienced gals view it the same as a parent watching their child grow up, it's scary, but it's natural and needed, we cant let gal stagnate forever or we will forever be in the loop we are now (tho hopefully if my predictions are right we are exitting) where we have no clothes that are accessible to 99% of gals, we'll forever be paying hundreds for dry rotted belts held togther by a thread or a piss smelling smoke stained coat. Im not saying we aren't allowed to still want these like hell I'd kill for one of my dream colourway alba coats, but we deserve better then this as a community, we deserve new clothes, we deserve clothes that fit and aren't falling apart, we shouldn't have to diy everything, and we shouldnt be forced to buy from shein when all else fails, we deserve new brands and trends.  

What Im trying to say to you, dear reader, is experiment, let gal evolve and be the reason it is evolving. Find new shops, find new trends for gal to absorb, take the old trends and evolve them, look and encourage new gals and the Reiwas and Cgals, stay true to gal and be trendy and yourself, don't force yourself into imaginary boxes, don't let the trends of all stiffle you into something you feel is cookie-cutter, and who knows, maybe youll find a trend others wanna follow and do what so many wanted to do and creat the mythical new substyle. But, and this is a big but, more than anything, have fun, be wild, and be sexy.

Question for next post: What's your favorite non-Gal trend?

Polish word of the day: Moda

Meaning Fashion

 

 Do zobaczenja <3

With thanks to Papillon magazine for the timeline, TokyoFashion.com for the snap and Amyh for Blog Deco